Page 39 of Ravenous Prophecy
The MEA agent nodded once at Williams and then stepped out of the room. When he left, Williams strode to the window, reaching up and closing the blinds, which clacked loudly and dimmed the room as they shut. I tried tospeak but found my mouth too dry, so I swallowed, clearing my throat.
“Mr. Williams,” I said, my voice wobbling, frog-like. “JA. What are you doing here?”
“Well, the man I paid for discretion showed up at a club, stealing some important documents from me. Then he started sniffing around the oracles just when I had decided to test some products. And when this man, thisresearcher, this fool who believed in theHive, who got laughed out of his own dissertation defense, when he went after my blacksmith, when he stole my proprietary plans… well, I had to come see for myself.” Williams leaned on the desk, both hands flat. He loomed over me, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were bright in the dark. “What kind of apunktries to screwmeover? I had to see the balls on this moron. I had to see if it was balls of steel or rocks for brains orboth. Because I am JA Williams, and you donot fuck with me.”
His voice rose to a yell, and I winced away from the sound, swallowing through my dry mouth, part of me dissociating and watching as though I was seeing the whole thing from a corner of the room. He wasn’t here to see what kind of man I was.
He was here to kill me.
I wasn’t sure how I knew, but even though he didn’t have a weapon in hand, I just knew. I just knew I was done for, I was a goner, I was…
“So.” Williams pushed up on his hands, leaning closer and sneering down at me. “That’s the kind of man who thinks he can screw me.”
“I didn’t mean to…” I stuttered to a stop, unable to sayscrew you. Biting my lip, I thought about what I’d alreadydone. He was one man. I’d faced down a camp of feral oracles. I’d faced down men with weapons and heard the echo of the Hive in my head.
Lifting my chin, I glared at him. “I won’t let you bring them back. I won’t let you bring the Hive back into this realm. I will stop you.”
Williams’s lip peeled back from his teeth, and he laughed. Then, he reached into his jacket and drew out a folded piece of paper, unfolding it before placing it in front of me. “Read it.”
When I looked down, it matched what we’d found in ArKane Studio. It was a copy from an old book, but rather than only having the glyphs and directions highlighted, it was a picture of the entire tablet.
I read it quickly, picking it up, drawing it closer to my face, my eyes watering from staring at it so long without blinking. Brigette and I had managed to deduce most of it, but seeing it here, so clearly written out, I couldn’t help but read aloud.
“The Hive Father will arrive, bringing the power of the Hive, the blood of the innocents, the future of the world. The Hive Father is all. The Hive Father is nothing. The Hive Father iskrajnji otac. Jedini pravi otac. Jedini pravi voda.Do you even know what this means?” I demanded, pushing myself up.
“Jedanni.” Williams sounded out the word, trying again. “Jedinai.”
“Jedini,” I snapped, correcting his pronunciation.
“Jedini,” Williams said correctly. “I knew I wasn’t putting the emphasis in the right spot. Thank you.”
Then he raised his weapon, shooting me in the chest.
I stared at him, the gun in his hand small enough to fit in a pocket, unlike the automatic weapons he’d given his men. When I looked down, blood was soaking my shirt, ruining the fabric, never coming out, and Griffin would be left wondering what happened to me for the rest of his life. Because Williams was going to walk out of here, and MEA was going to circle its wagons.
“Why?” I asked, my hands braced on the desk the only thing keeping me upright. “Why?”
“I made it pretty clear,” Williams said, tucking the weapon away. His lips pulled to the side, and he raised an eyebrow. “You tried to ruin something I’ve been working on for decades. If you thought I was going to let some punk academic ruin this?—”
“Why do it at all?” I gasped, feeling the bullet in my chest, feeling it burning through my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, each gasp feeling like I was inhaling glass. “You have… money… power. Why?”
“This world has gone to shit. You see it. I know you do. The way the weak are able to survive, tothrivein a system that should drown them at birth. The way everyone lets the idiots and beggars off. Theygive themwhat they need so no one has to work for it anymore. A man should have to work for what he gets. A man should have to earn it.” Williams shook his finger at me. “How many times were you given what you needed without lifting a finger to earn it?”
“I—” I was saved from having to answer by coughing up a tremendous amount of blood as the ensorcelled bullet tunneled through my lungs.
“That’s what I thought. A man’s life should have value,and what value does your life have if you’re given everything?” He shook his head again.
My knees went out, and I collapsed down, still gripping the edge of the desk. “This will—” I tried to say “kill everything,” but the blood pouring from my lips turned it into gibberish. Williams seemed to understand what I was saying anyway.
“Exactly. You see now.” He gave me one last look. “I guess I do feel a little bad that you won’t ever see the monsters you were chasing for so long.”
I collapsed down, the concrete floor a relief to my fever-hot cheek. JA Williams’s shoes walked out of my line of sight, and I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I was on a soft bed, and Griffin was sitting on a chair beside me, hovering close, his expression wan. His cheek was streaked with blood, his hair a mess. I reached over, pushing it off his forehead.
He caught my hand and turned it, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“What happened?” I asked, my chest hurting too much, my mouth too dry for this to be the afterlife.
